Providing ground separation between first and second grounded environments (e.g., two pieces of electrical equipment) becomes necessary when electrically connecting the environments would cause one or the other to fail or operate poorly (e.g., due to ground loops). However, past techniques for providing ground separation have often been inadequate when a signal passed between two environments is wideband (e.g., subject to variance from direct current (DC) to 200 MHz).
One technique for providing ground separation between two grounded environments is to couple the environments using a radio frequency (RF) transformer. However, such a technique is typically best-suited to higher, banded frequencies, and DC and low-frequency signals (e.g., signals below about 100 kHz) are typically cut off by the transformer.
Another technique for providing ground separation between two environments is to use a DC block. Similar to an RF transformer, a DC block can isolate DC signals and cut off ground loops. However, also like an RF transformer, a DC block will not pass DC and low-frequency signals.
Yet another technique for providing ground separation between two environments is to float one or both of the environments using a transformer to isolate the environment's power source from ground. However, this technique can be dangerous and is not recommended.